V Blood Level Gap

[Maligner]

I've reached level 47 which is Iron Weapons and all Hollowfang with the best cloak and jewelry I can make. To get to level 47, I had to defeat a level 48 V Blood to be able to make the Hollowfang, so I think I was about level 42 in order to make the last progression I achieved.

Contrast this with all of the Act I bosses in which I was same or just barely lower level, and the game difficulty seems to be off. I keep double checking to see if I missed something in the progression that would make my level more appropriate and there's nothing I can find. It's such a nagging feeling to feel that I'll be trying to defeat quite a lot higher bosses just to progress at all. To put it another way, I could play 1000 hours and no matter how much loot I find, I will never get stronger unless I kill bosses quite a lot higher than my level.

This seems like an odd design to me. Sure, I could always choose to try bosses when I'm a lower level for the challenge and quicker advancement, but there are no other options at this point. I've taken on and beaten Vincent who is 5 gear levels higher, and it was a slight struggle with his rush attack which was super hard to avoid at times, but I'm not really looking forward to the other three, because I don't see my gear level increasing until I defeat at least one of the level 55 bosses, 8 gear levels above me, to unlock more research or better jewelry. I'm a little stunned at this design. I'm sure it's not a big deal for those people that find the game easy, but for the other people out there, it's going to be frustrating.

I suppose I still think I must be missing something?

[Nabu™ ✽]

are you sure you have everything? If your hand is empty you can be "weaker", make sure you choose a weapon on the actionbar. :)

before 1.0 T1 max was 41GS.
T2 which was the iron phase max GS is 61.

(We currently are at 41gs. But we still need to beat the lvl37 T1 boss before moving to T2.
So maybe they changed something.)

[Maligner]

I just tried my hand at unlocking the Study which is as I noted 8 gear levels higher. Considering I'm not that great at this kind of play (but I play it because I love the game), I probably got her to about 40% health before I ran away. The only real things I was missing was the ferocity potion and better blood, which I will do next time. But, it's just like I said; I see no way to narrow the gap with any gear I've missed. All upgrades will require taking on progressively higher gear levels comparative to the player's current gear level.

I am using iron weapons for gear score.

[theworld]

What are you smoking? You can get to 50 before Maja.

[Bobucles]

Get the base gear, then +3 from weapon+, another 3 from trinket+, and 4 more from armor+, which has +1 level as a set bonus. So you can get 11 levels above the base kit before being forced into the next tier.

[Mogz]

Originally posted by Maligner:

I just tried my hand at unlocking the Study which is as I noted 8 gear levels higher. Considering I'm not that great at this kind of play (but I play it because I love the game), I probably got her to about 40% health before I ran away. The only real things I was missing was the ferocity potion and better blood, which I will do next time. But, it's just like I said; I see no way to narrow the gap with any gear I've missed. All upgrades will require taking on progressively higher gear levels comparative to the player's current gear level.

I am using iron weapons for gear score.

are you typing something incorrect? if your gear score 47, maja is also 47 which unlocks the study along with leandra which will unlock you the scourgestone necklace to bump you up on gearscore and krig who gives reaper unlock, but even at 47, going 3 gear score higher and beating meredith, grethel and bane are also doable.

[Red Tamaki]

skill issue, git gud.

Ok, memes aside, I was in your predicament in the early acces with some bosses and it turns out that you have lots of spells, weapons and even the environment to use as your advantage. So plan the fight, try different approachs and know that high quality blood can be a huge game changer.

...or you can always do some Jolly Cooperation~

[.Master Jiren, The Strongest]

i've noticed that it does seem like the game is designed to have you always punching up. it makes sense in a certain way, if you think about it, getting stronger should involve you overcoming a challenge. it's just that, in this game, unless you're 100%ing everything before moving on, you're going to always be a step behind the bosses. and every step behind you are, gives them another major power advance over you. if you're not getting killed in one hit, then itll be two hits.

theres 2 reasons i can see for this design choice
1) this game seems to be designed for 4 player co-op. they even said these public servers were never meant to be your "permanent home" which heavily implies you're not meant to play with a community, but rather with 3 buddies. Considering that, bosses are way easier when theres 4 of you tackling them.
2) this game is a mix of castlevania, survival-crafting, and dark souls. because everyone loves dark souls for some reason, so all the new games that come out have to involve bosses that 1-hit you if you dont memorize their pattern and dodge--que the git gud comments. but thats pretty much what you have to do. once you memorize the boss's pattern, you dodge all their attacks without taking any damage, then you win. its strategic fighting, which is a lot better than just button mashing like in WoW.

i think what they should do is hand hold the player a little more but telling us what items are available for us to pursue. yes, they do this by letting you see what drops from the bosses 10 levels above you, but im talking about the hidden items that you dont know about. i saw someone that was almost 10 levels below me, had a ring of +15. no idea where you get that, or how they managed to acquire something that was literally doubling their level. when you kill bosses, theres a chance for certain schematics to drop. these schematics can help you close the gap. problem is, you dont know about them because the game doesnt tell you.

So maybe a compendum of secret items. doesnt have to give us all the details. just some black silhouettes that says "ring, found near a suspicious looking tree somewhere in silverlight forest-item level 15" just as an example. info like that would help players close the gap before trying to solo bosses 5-10 levels above them, especially those who dont have friends whove been playing this for 2 years and have memorized everything about the game that can help you 4v1 the bosses for e z l00ts.


That said. i've not fought a boss i couldnt solo yet. so i'm not complaining that the game is too difficult. i'm merely saying i see what the OP is saying, and have provided my thoughts on the matter.

[Maligner]

Quick note about the multiplayer aspect; the v blood's are supposed to buff with more players, so the balance should not be so hard solo by default. It's supposed to scale to be harder as more players take them on together, though the synergy of more players is hard to quantify as some tactical options will be huge with 2 or more players.

I found my answer. I'm playing on my own dedicated GPortal server and the default setting is V Blood Level Offset of 8, which means they are 8 levels higher than me. I set this to 0 and now everything matches my exact level, so Vincent is suddenly 3 levels lower than me instead of 4 levels higher and the next tier are my level instead of 8 levels higher.

I've yet to test them out but will report only if there's still an issue.

[Megapal]

bosses in rpgs are usually higher level than the player because theyre supposed to be challenging, if they were the same level or lower than you then they wouldn't be bosses, bosses only advantage over you is their stats, you need to beat them with a strategy and using your brain